Grimm #2 sniffed. ‘Search me,’ he replied. ‘Boiled cabbage, probably. Come on, let’s see what we can find. You look down here, I’ll try upstairs.’

He clumped up the rickety wooden staircase and found himself in a dark, musty room with a low ceiling, most of which was taken up with an enormous four-poster bed. He was heading for the window to open the curtains and let some light in when a movement at the periphery of his vision stopped him in his tracks.

There was someone in the bed.

Burglars take these things in their stride; but Grimm #2 wasn’t a burglar. He swivelled round, lost his balance, slipped and fell backwards into a coalscuttle.

‘Who’s there?’

Old biddy voice, coming from somewhere in the heavy duty darkness behind the drapes of the four-poster. Damn, thought Grimm #2, now what? The obvious thing to do was beat as hasty and unobtrusive a retreat as possible; but with his bum wedged in a coalscuttle he was in no position to demonstrate his precision-honed Special Forces running-away techniques. A pity. All that training wasted.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Then he caught sight of the eyes.

‘Help,’ said the old biddy. ‘Help help.’

That’s what she said; but anything less frightened-sounding would be hard to imagine. To judge from her tone of voice, she was marginally less terrified than a full-grown tiger in a cage full of lemmings. And the eyes.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you. I didn’t think anybody was at home. I just wanted to, um, ask the way.’

‘Where to?’

To his dismay, Grimm #2 discovered that his brain wasn’t working. ‘New York,’ he said. ‘I think I may be…’

‘Turn left as you go out the front door, first right then second left off the main forest road till you come to a derelict water-mill, turn left past the Cat & Fiddle and carry on down about six thousand miles and you can’t miss it.

‘Ah. Thanks.’ Grimm #2 started to back away, still staring at the eyes. ‘Much obliged.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

Something buried deep in his mind, down among the silt and potsherds of childhood, told him not to say it; but he say it anyway. ‘Nothing personal,’ he said, ‘but what big eyes you’ve got.’

‘All the better to see you with, my dear.’

Fair enough, Grimm #2 said to himself. Best leave it at that and go, now. But he didn’t.

‘What big ears you’ve got,’ he mumbled, though he couldn’t see any ears in the gloom, only the two red eyes. For all he knew, she could have ears like a Ferengi or two pinholes drilled flush with the side of the head.

‘All the better to hear you with, my dear.’

‘Quite. And, um, what big hands you’ve got.’

A dry, rasping chuckle came from behind the bed curtains. ‘All the better to hold you with, my dear.’

Thanks, but you’re not my type. ‘And, um, don’t take this the wrong way, but what big teeth you’ve… Oh shit.’

The curtains billowed up like a storm-tossed sail or a cheap umbrella blowing inside out ten minutes after you’ve bought it, and there was something huge and dark and rank very close to him. He could feel its breath on his face; could smell it too, like the inside of a badly neglected fridge. ‘All the better to eat you with, sucker,’ said the voice. ‘Prepare to—’

‘Help!’ But as Grimm #2 cowered back against the door, his arms in front of his face, he still couldn’t help noticing that the thing squatting in front of him, poised to spring, wasn’t a little old lady any more. Not even a big, nasty, savage little old lady with coal-red eyes and teeth like a vampire Ken Dodd. She’d changed.

Changed into a wolf.

‘Unless,’ the werewolf went on, ‘you feel like negotiating.’

‘Um,’ Grimm #2 replied; and in the circumstances, neither Oscar Wilde nor Noël Coward could have done much better. ‘Sure,’ he added. ‘What had you in mind?’

‘Depends,’ said the werewolf, ‘on what you’ve got to offer.’

Offhand, Grimm #2 couldn’t think of anything to say, except possibly Well, that explains a lot about the story of Little Red Riding Hood. He didn’t say that, however, for obvious reasons.

‘Well?’

‘I’ve got two tickets for the Splitting Heads gig on Wednesday night,’ he ventured. ‘You could take a friend.’

‘Thanks,’ snarled the werewolf, ‘but no thanks. I was thinking of something rather more — traditional, let’s say.’

‘Traditional.’

‘That’s right. Your daughter and half your kingdom, for instance. Or a monthly tribute of oven-ready virgins, with side-salad and something from the trolley to follow?’

Grimm #2 thought for a moment. He didn’t have a daughter or a kingdom, and he doubted whether a goldfish and the kitchen and spare bedroom of his flat would be sufficiently tempting. As for monthly virgins, that was a non-starter. Even if he could get the girls from the office to co-operate, he had a feeling that some of the criteria were a bit too stringently drawn. ‘How about money?’ he suggested.

The werewolf frowned. ‘You mean the chocolate stuff with the gold foil wrapping?’ She shook her head.

‘Gives me wind.’

‘Come on, you’re the one in the hot seat. You think of something.’

Grimm #2 thought hard. He thought until he imagined he could feel his eyes getting squeezed out of his head. But nothing came, and the old lady was slowly but surely edging closer. Then inspiration struck — ‘I know,’ he said. ‘What about my brother?’

The werewolf hesitated for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Why him and not you?’

‘Taste,’ Grimm #2 answered frantically. ‘Flavour. Not to mention being high in polyunsaturates and free of artificial colourings. He doesn’t contain nuts, either.’

The werewolf looked at him contemptuously. ‘That’d go for you too, if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Where I come from, we have a saying: a man in the fridge is worth two in the bush. Besides,’ she added horribly, ‘I’ve taken a liking to you. Now then—’

‘All right!’ Grimm #2 screeched. ‘What about the secret of absolute power? Any use to you?’

‘Might be,’ the werewolf conceded. ‘What had you in mind?’

‘The Mirrors network,’ Grimm #2 panted, trying to draw breath through his nose like someone trying to suck up the last half-inch of a thick milkshake through a bent straw. ‘The operating system that runs this lousy place. You know, as in com—’

The werewolf looked at him oddly. ‘What do you mean, operating system? If by this place you mean the kingdom, it’s run by the wicked queen. Everybody knows that.’ She shook her grizzled head. ‘I should know better at my age than to waste time listening to chatty food,’ she said. ‘Now, are you going to hold still or do I have to tenderise you a bit first?’

‘It’s the wicked queen’s magic mirror,’ Grimm #2 said quickly, and the words tumbled out of his mouth like spoons from a kleptomaniac’s sleeves. ‘It’s what she runs the country with. I can, um, give it to you.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Or at least, I could give you the power to work it. If you’ve got a mirror handy, that is.’

The werewolf sniggered messily. ‘Odd you should mention that,’ she said. ‘What with one thing and another, mirrors aren’t something I have much truck with, if you take my meaning.’

Grimm #2 tried to smile. ‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ he said. ‘A smart suit with shoulder pads, a bit of eye shadow—’

‘They don’t work too good when I’m around,’ the werewolf explained irritably. ‘Goes with the job, I’m told. Like, there’s no point in me polishing the silver till you can see your face in it, because I can’t.’

‘Hm?’ Grimm #2’s brow furrowed in bewilderment, then relaxed. ‘Oh I see,’ he said. ‘Because you’re a…’

‘That’s right, dear.’

‘So I suppose you’re not too keen on garlic, either. Or silver bul—’

‘Boy, what a loss you were to the diplomatic service. Yes, that’s right. Though what all that’s got to do with you getting eaten…’